Archive for March, 2011

Thank you Council of Canadians for writing this article… there seems to be a ton of articles out there that are full of distracting information.

Friday, March 18th, 2011
Currently, 114 First Nations communities are under drinking water advisories. Some private water companies see this as a business opportunity and aggressively pursue new ‘markets’ in First Nations communities. The CBC reports that, “Shawn Atleo, Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said he meets with hundreds of companies who say they have solutions to First Nations water-quality problems, but tells them to speak directly the communities.” And rather than providing the funding needed for First Nations water infrastructure needs, the Harper government has instead seen privatization as a quick fix for the water crisis in First Nations communities and has promoted public-private partnerships through its federal budgets.

Now Postmedia News reports that, “A former senior adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper was lobbying the Indian Affairs Department to land contracts potentially worth millions of dollars for an Ottawa-based water company (H20 Global Group)…. Bruce Carson, after serving as a top adviser to the prime minister, met with staff in Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan’s office (on January 11), where he briefed them on a water-filtration project… The project involved water filtration systems for dozens of First Nations communities who are currently under orders to boil their water…” According to APTN, “Carson and company officials (had) plans to sell up to 40,000 water filtration units to 50 identified First Nations with dire water problems.”

The Globe and Mail adds that, “First nations leaders were allegedly being warned by the promoters of the H2O Pro system that new legislation (S-11) before the Senate will require them to meet stringent drinking water standards but will provide no resources to do so. The communities were allegedly told that government connections could be used to find money for the equipment and training if they purchased the systems.”

“At the same time, Mr. Carson was trying to convince the company he still had powerful access to the government. In one e-mail, obtained by the APTN, he wrote two officials at H2O Pros claiming he had spoken with the Prime Minister on Aug. 5 about the pending appointment of Mr. Duncan to the Indian Affairs portfolio. He later admitted to the APTN that he had not spoken directly to Mr. Harper, but rather to someone in his office.”

Carson was reportedly also making claims that the Assembly of First Nations backed his project. CBC reports, “A statement released by the AFN says they don’t ‘endorse, promote or support any product, service or company with which Mr. Carson is or was involved.’ It goes on to say the AFN became aware last October Carson and his representatives ‘were making claims to that effect and we moved immediately to make him and his colleagues stop.’”

Postmedia notes, “In the early 1980s, Carson was disbarred and served time in jail after pleading guilty to two counts of defrauding law clients. Carson was (then) a key adviser to Harper, both in opposition and government. He was parachuted briefly in 2006 as chief of staff to then-environment minister Rona Ambrose, as environmentalists and other critics pilloried her for insufficient action to curb climate change. Ultimately, she was demoted and Carson returned to Harper’s side full time.”

“The director of programs and services with H2O…insisted Carson never worked as a lobbyist for the company and never promised any access to government. …Federal law prohibits former political staffers from lobbying government for five years after leaving office, and Carson was never registered as a lobbyist.”

“The prime minister’s office (has) sent a letter asking RCMP commissioner William Elliott to investigate whether Carson exploited his inside connections to influence a government decision. …The Prime Minister’s Office also sent letters, obtained by Postmedia News, to the ethics commissioner and lobbying commissioner, asking them to look into Carson’s activities. Spokesmen for both commissioners and the RCMP said they are reviewing the letters before launching investigations.”

Ottawa – The record-setting $130-million NAFTA settlement with AbitibiBowater has effectively privatized Canada’s water by allowing foreign investors to assert a proprietary claim to water permits and even water in its natural state, says trade lawyer and Council of Canadians board member Steven Shrybman, in a presentation to Parliament today.

“It would be difficult to overstate the consequences of such a profound transformation of the right Canadian governments have always had to own and control public natural resources,” says Mr. Shrybman in his presentation to the Standing Committee on International Trade, which is studying the AbitibiBowater NAFTA settlement from last August.

“Moreover, by recognizing water as private property, the government has gone much further than any international arbitral tribunal has dared to go in recognizing a commercial claim to natural water resources.”

In 2008, AbitibiBowater, a Canadian firm registered in the United States, closed its pulp and paper mill in Grand Falls-Windsor, NL. The company asserted rights to sell its assets, including certain timber harvesting licenses and water use permits. These permits were contingent on production. More importantly, under Canada’s constitution they are a public trust owned by the Province, not by private firms. So the Newfoundland government moved to re-appropriate them as it has a right to do under Canadian law. AbitibiBowater sidestepped the courts to challenge the Newfoundland government.

“The case clearly put the concept of water as a public trust on a direct collision course with treaty-based corporate and commercial rights. However, rather than defend public ownership and control of water, the federal government has agreed to settle AbitibiBowater’s claim,” says Mr. Shrybman. “By stipulating that the payment of compensation is on account of rights and assets, the government of Canada has explicitly acknowledged an obligation to compensate AbitibiBowater for claims relating to water taking permits and forest harvesting licenses.”

By settling with the company rather than challenging its case, we have no response from the federal government to refute the company’s proprietary claims to water and timber rights, explains Mr. Shrybman. The settlement also fails to identify the particular rights for which compensation will be paid, and makes no attempt to exclude any of the company’s claims, “thereby acknowledging the validity of the claims.”

“Moreover, by recognizing a proprietary claim to water taking and forest harvesting rights, Canada has gone much further than any international tribunal established under NAFTA rules, or to our knowledge, under the rules of other international investment treaties,” he says.

A statement by the government that the settlement shall not set a precedent is “entirely ineffective,” because of NAFTA’s National Treatment clause which grants foreign companies treatment no less favourable than national companies in like circumstances.

“It is not therefore an overstatement to describe the consequences of this settlement as effectively representing a coup-de-grace for public ownership and control of water and other natural resources with respect to which some license or permit had been granted.”

Shrybman suggests water takings by tar sands operations in Alberta, a golf course in Ontario or a water bottling plant in Quebec are other examples of where even a partial recovery of water rights by the provinces could detrimentally affect business. If any of these companies were foreign owned they could claim compensation on the same terms granted AbitibiBowater.

***

The Council of Canadians strongly believes there is no place in existing or future trade agreements for such overstretching investment protections. It has repeatedly called on the federal government to reopen NAFTA to remove the investor-to-state dispute process. The Council also recently joined several other Canadian organizations in writing to all members of the European Parliament urging them to reject the inclusion of NAFTA-like investment protections in the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which could be signed by the end of the year.

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For more information:
Dylan Penner, media officer, Council of Canadians: 613-795-8685, dpenner@canadians.org

February 28, 2011 LETTER SENT TO ALL ONTARIO CANADIAN FEDERATION OF STUDENT LOCALS

Boozhoo Ontario CFS Locals,

I was fortunate enough to speak to at the Spirit of the North conference to the Northern Ontario universities. We discussed plans for World Water Day (March 22/11) and Canada Water Week (March 14-22/11). There was support for holding ‘Glass Action’ days on campuses.

- show a feature length film, inviting the greater community to attend (i.e. Waterlife, Water on the Table)

- encourage people to bring empty glasses for water… if you have it in your budgets, you could mail in glasses for your students, or ask your MP drop them off to the Prime Minister… you could also have empty glasses on hand for people… start a water glass drive now… insert the postcards into each glass, so people can just quickly fill it out, then drop it into a box for shipping. EG4W CFS letters to PM (4 per page) PDF

- invite the Chief or an Elder from a neighbouring community to speak at your event, find out what their water situation is… perhaps you will be doing a water ceremony that day, ‘Greet Pray Semaa’, please send us this information so we can place a virtual semaa/tobacco leaf on our website (ceremony tracker: http://www.emptyglassforwater.ca/nyk/?page_id=145)

- promote the Mother Earth ‘Turtle Island’ Water Walk at your event. (www.motherearthwaterwalk.com) This year the Grandmothers and youth are walking and carrying water from all 3 oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico, and meeting in Bad River, Wisconsin where the waters will converge on JUNE 12th. I am helping coordinate this event. Water Walk 2011 Brochure PDF

A good fundraising idea brought to us from the Madeleine Huntjens, lead walker from the West is…
“I Support the Mother Earth Water Walkers One Step at a Time” PENNY DRIVE!!
On our last day at ceremonies we collected 36,897 pennies, so the walkers can walk 36,897 footsteps!
The walkers will be walking over 10,400,000 steps this spring… can we collect that many pennies to support them?
YES WE CAN!!

MEDIA RELEASE

Council of Canadians raises concerns about Senate bill on First Nations water safety

Ottawa – The Council of Canadians has raised several concerns with the Safe Drinking Water For First Nations Act (Bill S-11) in a submission to the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples.

With 117 communities under water advisories in December, the Council of Canadians strongly supports the creation of legislation that recognizes First Nation communities’ right to water and ensures safe drinking water for First Nation communities.

“Water is a human right, public trust and global commons,” says Council of Canadians national water campaigner Emma Lui, who prepared the submission. “We are extremely concerned that the Bill as it stands lacks funding commitments and could open the door to water privatization in First Nation communities. The Bill also currently gives the Canadian government the power to force a community to allow a private, for-profit entity to build, operate and/or manage its water services.”

The UN passed two resolutions last year recognizing the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation, with the second resolution making the right legally binding. The Council’s submission highlights that several clauses in Bill S-11 are inconsistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (DRIP), which Canada endorsed last November. In developing Bill S-11, many First Nation communities were not consulted and the bill does not require consultation in developing regulations on safe drinking water for First Nation communities.

The UN DRIP requires free, prior and informed consent to any decisions affecting indigenous lands and resources. Any bill or regulations involving safe drinking water in First Nation communities should be developed alongside First Nation communities and must include their concerns.

“It’s deeply troubling that several clauses affirm that the regulations made under Bill S-11 take precedence over aboriginal and treaty rights and First Nation laws or by-laws,” says Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow.

Last December, the Council released a report entitled Public Water for Sale: How Canada will Privatize our Public Water Systemswarning of the potential impacts of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) on Canada’s water systems. (see below) The report noted that, “The private sector will have the ability to enter First Nations as owners and operators of water and wastewater facilities due to a lack of infrastructure, resources and training within First Nations.” CETA and Bill S-11 combined could prevent First Nations from building, owning and operating their own water and wastewater plants.

The Council of Canadians is urging that any legislation on safe drinking water for First Nations include funding commitments, the explicit recognition that First Nation communities have a right to build, own and operate their own water systems, clear responsibilities for governments and private companies and a clause on free, prior and informed consent on any decisions affecting water systems.

The full submission is available Bill-S11. Please download and read the full submission.

Ottawa, ON — Canada’s already challenged public water systems are under threat from a broad free trade agreement being negotiated by Canada and the European Union (EU). A new report released today, Public Water for Sale: How Canada will Privatize Our Public Water Systems, warns that public water in Canada will be lost unless the provinces and territories take immediate steps to remove water from the scope of the proposed Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

The report from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the Council of Canadians exposes how CETA would open up public municipal water systems across Canada to privatization. At the request of Europe’s large private for-profit water corporations, provincial and territorial governments are considering including drinking water and wastewater services in their services commitments under CETA. They have been asked by the Harper government to make the final decision before a sixth round of CETA talks in Brussels this January.

“CETA is a water privatization deal,” says Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians. “Our public water is being negotiated away behind closed doors. We need to act now or we will wake up one morning and our public water systems will be gone.”

CUPE and the Council of Canadians are calling on the provinces and territories to assert their jurisdiction and protect water from the Harper government’s reckless disregard for Canada’s public water. The report notes the CETA agreement would compound existing pressure in Canadian municipalities and First Nations reserves to privatize water systems due to a lack of proper public funding and federal programs designed to encourage privatization.

“Canadians hold a great deal of trust in publicly owned, operated and delivered water and sanitation systems,” says CUPE National President Paul Moist. “Water and other essential services – such as health care, public transit, postal services and energy – are vital to our communities. This deal will allow the world’s largest multinational corporations to profit from Canada’s water.” Moist is also calling on CUPE’s municipal locals to take action against this deal which is being negotiated without full public debate.

EU negotiators are also asking that Canada’s municipalities and their water utilities be included in a chapter on public procurement. If this happens, it would be the first time Canada has allowed our drinking water to be fully covered under a trade treaty. The goal is clearly to encourage the privatization of Canada’s public municipal water systems.

“Canada’s drinking and sewage systems are important community assets. Public drinking water and sanitation services are a human right and the lifeblood of well-functioning communities,” says Barlow.